Grinding the Teeth

I am a chronic teeth grinder, especially while I sleep. So much so that I often wake up with headaches, and sometimes they’re intense enough to last for over an hour. For the second time I’ve managed to grind out the dental fillings in one of my teeth. The fillings of a third tooth are loosening and will likely break off soon. I literally ground my teeth with such pressure that the fillings popped right out.

It’s a problem that my stubborn sleep-self refuses to fix.

I’m not sure if you can meditate your way out of teeth grinding, but maybe I’ll try. Getting fillings at the dentist sucks enough that I’m going down the Google rabbit hole in search of a fix.

It may be a surprise to many because I’m usually calm by day. Maybe it’s the universe’s way of balancing things out. Light casts a shadow over every object.

I find myself thinking about death more often lately. Maybe it’s 40 approaching, which is approximately the midway point. Maybe it’s that I’m old enough to know people who have died, which inevitably happens if you live long enough. Then you mourn, process the moments that seemed so fleeting in retrospect, and find that life mercilessly moves on. Time doesn’t slow for their final moments, nor does society pause for your mourning. Your elders tell you not to wait for tomorrow for good reason.

I’m not scared of death, probably because I do think about it and recognize its inevitability. I see people around me who are my age or younger and are clearly terrified. Some dye their hair, get lifts or tucks, spend their free time searching for the latest anti-aging supplements, or pay for whatever hides the incurable decay that age inflicts. I’m good with all of it.

I’m also good to ride with time. It’s not like I have a choice. That doesn’t mean I won’t push my limits to the final moments. When Death does arrive, it’ll have to run me down and then keep swinging to the end of the final round. My University of Texas Swimming teammates used to say, “If you’re gonna beat Matt, it’s possible, but he’ll make you suffer for it.” That’s the attitude I want to take to the end.

But I do need to get a hold of this teeth grinding issue.

What is Terrifying?

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the film Terrifier 3, which landed number 1 at the box office opening weekend. As someone who studies numbers closely that had me thinking, There must be something to this franchise that I’m missing. So, I streamed Terrifier 2 out of curiosity. Everything I read suggested you can skip the first one, which was thin on both narrative and budget, and jump straight to the sequel.

Most of the buzz surrounding the franchise centers on its gratuitous violence. The marketing seemed to dare audiences to sit through the third film “without vomiting.” That doesn’t appeal to me. It’s true that I love a good rollercoaster, but I get motion sick each time I ride. I either vomit or get close to vomiting. At least rollercoasters defy gravity though. The same feeling without the speed doesn’t seem pleasant.

But there must be something to these films! Critics and audiences seem to like them.

So I streamed part 2. The positives: good cinematography. Inventive dream sequences. Effective creation of nostalgia (I felt like I was both outside on Halloween night last week, and trapped somewhere in the ‘80s). Maybe one of the best musical scores I’ve heard in years (I’m a sucker for the 80’s style synth music). The actor playing Art the Clown did a great job at being scary and twisted. He’s creepy as hell. I’d be lying if I said the movie didn’t keep me interested.

The cons: too violent for me. I’ve gotta be honest, it crossed my limits. This film is downright repulsive and not in a good way. Maybe I’m too old for the gross stuff. If a film is going to be transgressive with its violence, I need a purpose somewhere. You could even argue the violence in silly sci-fi films like Starship Troopers serves a purpose (it emphasizes the lack of individuality in the grunt soldiers). But violence for the sake of being violent just isn’t funny or thrilling. There has to be a narrative weaving through the violence. I didn’t detect enough of one or really any message about anything other than “this clown is really bad!”

So yeah, there are good elements to the movie. There always are. Nothing is ever all good or all bad, it’s all on a spectrum. But there weren’t nearly enough good elements to get me interested in part 3.

Maybe it is age but I’d rather watch something silly and simple. I heard Happy Gilmore 2 is releasing next year. I’m much more excited for that than Terrifier 3.

Every Loss is an Advantage

There’s something to be said about the long-term benefits of losing.

I had a lot of second place finishes as an NCAA swimmer in college, both individually and as part of a team. I think that I would’ve become too complacent, had any of them been a win. Winning can give you a false sense of finality to life.

Instead it’s almost two decades later and I still get excited to exercise every morning. I still like to test my limits and compete. It’s all still fun to me.

This can be applied to anything in life. There’s nothing that softens someone like an easy victory. Bane said something about this before he broke Batman’s back in The Dark Knight Rises. “Victory has defeated you.”

One thing I enjoy about running is that I’m not the fastest. I just enjoy it. There’s no risk of victory defeating me.

Preferring It Darker

I just finished the recent Stephen King short story collection, You Like It Darker. It features some of King’s best work. “Rattlesnakes” was the standout story for me. The collection is aptly titled for its readers. Yes, I prefer fiction suffused with darkness.

I watched Smile 2 in theaters on Halloween night. It might’ve been the first film I’d seen in awhile that was too dark. It was downright nihilistic. I need a shred of hope for my characters, but they were given none. I can only take so much unease when I’m paying money for entertainment. That said, it’s a well-made film. I don’t know whether I enjoyed it or not.

I took a walk through my neighborhood yesterday, on Halloween, and a light breeze sent leaves showering over the world around me. Every organism needs to shed something occasionally. Watching the trees rid themselves of dead foliage, I thought about time, in general, and about how I’m approximately halfway through this thing called life, give or take a few years. And that’s being optimistic, assuming the millions of potential maladies don’t destroy me first.

What a brief time we have, I thought, and yet there are millions of organisms allowed much briefer time (and some lucky ones, such as the trees we walk by each day, that may still stand when our great grandkids are on their deathbeds).

When my mind veers that direction I think of the importance of prioritizing your own time. If you don’t, someone else will prioritize yours for you. And life’s too brief to allow much of that.

The Only Constant is Change

I was in the office building on a weekday morning hurrying towards the coffee lounge and feeling both lethargic and unmotivated when I ran into an old friend, Donald, whom I hadn’t spoken to in awhile. We’re in different departments.

Years back, while cycling to work, I’d often greet him on the road as he rode his e-bike to work. We biked to work in any condition: rain, sleet, and snow, it didn’t matter. I guess we were kindred spirits, the only two who did this regularly, with a story we shared and yet no one around us would ever understand. You get to know the other cyclists fast when there’s only a few of you in the area.

“You still riding the e-bike in?” I asked him.

“No. Not since they added the security gates,” he said. And neither have I. The gates occlude all of the easiest bike paths, leaving only a dangerous and high-traffic street as access to the building.

“I hate cycling on Campus Parkway,” I said. There are some drivers who would nonchalantly hit a cyclist if no one was around to see it.

“Yeah,” he said. “And my bike kept getting caught in the turnstile.” I hadn’t thought about that, as I hadn’t actually tried to carry my bike through. The irony is there’s actually a bike rack inside the security gates, but it’s now impossible to get a bike to it!

“I miss those days, cycling in. The world slows down for you.”

“And you feel like you can do anything. People say it’s impossible, but you do it anyways.”

“You bike to work when it’s sleeting and your hands are numb, and you’re thinking what the hell is wrong with me. But you also know that you can struggle and win.”

I miss those days, seeing Donald on the road as dawn winks at the horizon and slowly eviscerates the darkness. However, the only constant is change, and that chapter has closed. I realize that I’ll probably never see Donald on the road again and feel melancholy.

An e-mail circulates about a company “green initiative,” and the “need to recycle!” I think about Donald, unable to carry his e-bike through the security gate’s turnstiles, and I think about how everyone looked at us as lunatics when we parked our bikes in the morning.

Payback

I had a dream in which I was able to thank someone, for something that person helped me with in high school. I never actually had the time or maturity to say thanks to that person when it would’ve mattered most, and the dream seemed to give me some form of closure in the form of a hug and a thanks.

It was one of those reminders that it isn’t the things we said that we regret the most; it’s the things we didn’t say.

On the commute to work, I didn’t realize a button popped off my shirt until I arrived. No use driving back, so I decided to “Burt Reynolds” the day. I then ordered some thread and a sewing needle. Looks like I’ll be picking up a life skill soon. Better late than never.

There is only a week left of Oktoberfest and it pains me that I’ve been dry the entire month, mostly due to the Chicago Marathon, which I ran on October 13th. That should change shortly.

I have a story idea or two, and a thousand excuses not to transfer thoughts to pages. “Life is busy” is the main excuse. Well, life only gets busier…

Square One

Sometimes the best path forward is backward, one of those paradoxes you’d think only exist in a Lewis Carroll story. I’m not just taking a step backward these days. I’m sprinting towards what once was, but hasn’t been, but potentially could be again, if one resists the natural ebb and flow of things and swims toward the maelstrom.

I think of time and how deceiving and malicious it can be if one isn’t careful. Age 10 was both yesterday and three decades ago. A 10-year-old’s idea of sprinting down a sandy hill for the sake of feeling a cool breeze on the cheeks and the adrenaline rush of raw speed was enough to try something that an adult would consider dumb (because it’s unsafe, of course). A tumble and scraped knees were worth it. I think of trying to skateboard and drink coffee at the same time, and failing spectacularly at both.

Contrast that to adulthood, when movement is mostly calculated. We are tethered to a beaten path, a watch, a pace, and a “goal.” Even the trails are a set number of miles, a metric. The daily walk stays on a flat sidewalk, perfectly smooth, manufactured for the sake of comfort, a number of steps that a doctor says must be “hit.” Walking for the sake of “exercise.” Movement is a chore; you’re either sitting robotically or walking robotically. What adult yearns to hang upside down and study the clouds?

I try to find the spontaneous boy who thrived in random chaos. That person, I think, was waiting patiently, not dead but just in hibernation.

I go out on a brisk fall morning and run barefoot in the park. A few random sprints with no set interval or time, just the rush and fast twitch muscles activating. I wander through neighborhoods I hadn’t seen before and study the halloween decor in the lawns.

I drive to work listening to what I used to consider 90’s trash, Limp Bizkit, and think a metal show sounds like a great idea, just losing oneself in music, aggressive and fast music, cathartic music, anti-establishment stuff with machine-gun guitar riffs and banshee vocals.

It seems preferable to another day with a prescribed routine: a day that slashes routine to pieces.

We have a pumpkin painting activity at work, for team building, so I paint Art the Clown, the evil killer clown from the Terrifer films. Everyone else paints happy faces or just writes inside work jokes. Nothing left for wonder or awe.

I doubt I won the contest, but I know I created a nightmare or two.

The Fall Vistas

Practically every vista looks beautiful in fall, when the flame-like foliage seems to engulf everything.

I think of the “flames of youth” and yet the fall seems to contradict this. The blazing fall colors are signs of life withering away, not overflowing.

It seems fitting that fall is such a transient season. The trees shed themselves hurriedly and afterwards it seems that winter lingers forever. I wonder if this is how life is or if the remaining seasons all pass by in a blink.

I think of this and remind myself of the importance of my own mind and memory, because without them it would eventually be as though none of this had ever happened.

Sound Mixing Can’t Make It…

But inept sound mixing can break an album.

I was reminded of this while first listening to the new Nightwish album, Yesterwynde. The vocals are nonsensically drowned out by symphonic metal melodies, and yet the guitars still fail to “crunch” like they do in better Nightwish albums. The album needs more voice and guitar, balance be damned.

As a result I find the album to be an “elevator music” type of experience.

It brings to mind my thoughts on the Slayer discography. Though Reign in Blood is arguably the best album compositionally, I’ve met several first-time Slayer listeners who prefer the more recent Christ Illusion. The production values of the latter are far superior. A budget goes a long way. That’s not to say that Reign in Blood is bad, just that the album is sonically less immersive by today’s standards. Again, the machine-gun riffs “crunch” more crisply on Christ Illusion. and it makes the album more immersive.

So why was Yesterwynde mixed so poorly? I can only guess that those in charge of the album’s vision prioritized a “balanced sound.” The problem with this approach is that balance rarely if ever leads to artistic greatness. Creative minds are typically unbalanced because it’s only in the realm of insanity that creativity can thrive, which is why any impactful band will choose to live there.

So that is one of several reasons why one listen of Yesterwynde was enough for me. I’ll take Imaginaerium over that album any day.

The Dream Within a Dream

I had a dream in which I could fall asleep and dream a different past for myself. When I woke from this dream within a dream, it would manifest into a new reality.

All I had to do was fall asleep and dream, and I’d wake up in a different city, with a different job and a different lifestyle.

I quickly became addicted to the newness of it all and soon barely found myself awake. I was in a constant hurry to fall back asleep and dream, and see what different life would unfold.

Every moment brought a new family, new love, new hobby, and new addiction. One moment I was a workaholic, the next an alcoholic.

I think this dream was telling me something about the dangers of always chasing newness.

Hurried Driver

Veering the steel cage around a slower steel cage, breathless, frantic, throat clenches, phone tethered to hand (who texted me?), a white rabbit racing. I have somewhere I must be! Panic overwhelms the mind, foot on the pedal presses forever downward, yes I must be faster, traffic could destroy me if I don’t act rash. Slurp the latte, fight for a parking space near the building. Ten seconds to spare, the morning is a game of inches! Breaths at last. Rinse and repeat. Freedom via the car. Maybe it needs an upgrade. A raise would permit that. It will have more space, better mileage. Touch screen linked to the cloud, GPS showing the way.

What Dreams May Come

I had a dream last night in which it was dusk on some isolated and vacant beach, and I was at the shoreline, lying face-down on my stomach, belly against wet sand.

Waves brushed me and foamed around me as I stared at a fading scarlet sun and watched the water darken. My mouth was just elevated enough to prevent choking on water. I had nowhere to go and nothing to become, but I felt a satisfaction regardless.

I woke before dawn and thought that if I could make my life that still, it would be an accomplishment.

Laszlo the Great and Powerful

My girlfriend and I adopted a kitten about a month ago and named him “Laszlo,” after my favorite character from the TV series What We Do in the Shadows.

I learned that his breed is “Scottish straight” (British shorthair father and Scottish fold mother). The straight signifies that his ears are straight, not folded. His eyes are sky blue and his tail has been forming some cute black rings that swirl around his white fur.

I got a cat because they’re generally lower maintenance than dogs, so it’s been a pleasant surprise that he’s also affectionate. He wanted to sleep in the bed from night one, and has done so every night since.

He’s very vocal and provides a wide variety of “meows” throughout the day. My best guess is that the common ones mean “I’m hungry,” “I’m annoyed,” “I’m tired,” “I want attention,” and “I want to play.”

He sometimes sleeps with his toys and routinely cuddles with me on the couch at night while I play Nintendo Switch.

He loves staring out the window and studying the outside world. He might be plotting how he’ll slaughter every bird on this planet.

Rain seems to amaze him and his eyes widen at the formation of puddles on the outside street.

That youthful awe when seeing things for the first time!

We were worried at first because he limped around the apartment his first two weeks. We feared it might be Osteochondrodysplasia, which I learned is a common disease among Scottish folds.

However it turned out he somehow ripped off a nail, which caused the limp. It since grew back and he’s walking/running/climbing/jumping well now. He chases his bird toys with a renewed vigor.

He’s a very chill little dude for a 4-month-old kitten!

Talk at the Pool

I was coaching a local club swimming team that I help with on Wednesday evenings and found myself talking to an eight-year-old boy, who swims in one of the beginner groups.

He’s especially small and wears board shorts that are long enough to look like pants due to his short legs. He still has those puffy toddler cheeks and squinty eyes that also make him look especially young and somewhat cherubic.

Somehow we were talking about the fast technical race suits that swimmers used at major events until they were eventually banned for being too fast (the “super suits”).

“They’re like shark skin,” I said. “And they can cover your whole body, and the water around you just rolls right off. You fly through the water.”

His eyes grew wide.

“And you wore them?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “For a little bit, before I retired. Then they got banned anyways.”

“But why’d you retire?”

I paused and had to think about that for a moment.

“I finished college. Then there was nothing left to compete in.”

“You don’t have to compete though,” he said. “You can still enjoy it.”

Then he pushed off the wall and started swimming, and I felt a pang of sadness and thought about how damn wise kids can be sometimes.

Affirmations

Yesterday I had my first visit with a Physical Therapist for my foot injury. After an examination I was told what I expected to hear, which is that the plantar fascia on my left foot is messed up.

“You can really feel the scar tissue and adhesions there. It’s no surprise you’re in a lot of pain.”

“That’s good news,” I said. “If all the problems are in one place, I know what to work on.”

About two weeks ago, in a bout of pain and frustration, I ditched all of my cushioned shoes and replaced them with more minimalist, wide toe box shoes. This seems counterintuitive for someone in pain just from walking, but I have my reasons, and desperate times call for drastic measures. I believe in acting swiftly and severely.

I had been wearing heavily cushioned shoes with elevated heels as daily wear for awhile, thinking it would keep my feet comfy outside of distance runs. My theory is that this has something to do with the injury. Simply put, a tendon became too weak to sustain what I was doing to it, and worse yet, there wasn’t enough blood flowing to the area to heal it. So, I’m seeking natural foot strength. Time will tell if my theory is correct.

I woke up this morning and spent a few minutes rolling my foot on a heated vibrating roller sphere. Then I massaged it with an arch massager I got from Alleviate. I put on some toe spacers and spent an hour on the elliptical, then did a series of calf raise exercises and stretches. I’m wearing the toe spacers for most of the day, every day, to help promote blood flow to the plantar fascia.

I’m preparing revenge.

Playing over and over in my mind is what someone told me after this injury: “You’re injury prone. You need to be put in a bubble.” Those mocking words anger me beyond anything I’ve ever felt, and I used to be a very pissed off competitor!

For the last few weeks I have been repeating to myself, “They think you’re frail. They think you can’t do what you’re doing. Prove them wrong.” It’s the first thing I think when I wake up and the last thing I think when I go to bed.

It seems like the best way to really prove them wrong is to become the most durable fucking specimen they’ve ever heard of.

I promised the PT I wouldn’t run until walking felt somewhat comfortable. I’m not there yet, but I do believe the plantar is getting there.

I buried the “Manimal,” my old college athlete persona that my teammates called me, about 16 years ago because I didn’t think that persona was healthy beyond NCAA swimming. Leave it to some asshole to resurrect him! This time I think that side of me is here to stay. It isn’t the side of me that forgives or lets weak ass office comments slide!

2024: A Hopeful Step Back

Sometimes you have to take a step backward to move forward. I have a pervading sense that backtracking will be a theme for me in 2024. I’ve realized, through trial and error, that I want to revert certain aspects of my life.

The first change surrounds my cycling. I tested the waters of fitness cycling for a few years and have decided to go back to my bike commuter roots. Broken bones are not the primary reason for this. I find the most joy in keeping cycling simple: just hopping on a commuter bike and riding around a park, or on a short trip to the grocery store. I envision my future and cannot see myself embracing cycling as a sport: it just seems like an added stressor, and cycling is supposed to be my stress relief. So, I’m selling my endurance bike and a lot of my cycling apparel.

I often find the most joy in life when I keep everything simplified. Cycling for me is a prime example of this. I want cycling to be an adventure, not a chore. I want it to be organic and raw, not an exercise monitored by GPS watches and power meters. I want to breathe fresh air and have the world slow down, not obsess myself over the desire to speed up. I generally hate “intervals,” so why am I pigeoning myself into more of them during a hobby?

I want to rid myself of the Protestant work ethic while on a bike.

I’m also ditching the Kindle in favor of more physical books. I read far too much via blue screen. There was a time in my life when I only read text on paper. Electronic reading is a strain on the eyes. Sometimes I wonder if our screens will render all of us prematurely blind.

I’m aiming to write more reviews. Years ago I enjoyed providing reviews of various elements of pop culture and I’d like to return to the habit. Some of my favorite authors, including Edgar Allen Poe and George Orwell, were also prolific reviewers.

Finally, I’m prioritizing my own dreams. Over the years I’ve let them slip too much for the sake of money and as I look up the capitalist heirarchical ladder, I don’t see more money solving any problems. In fact, I see more money creating new problems.

When I die, I don’t foresee anyone reading a eulogy about how much money I made or how productive I was as an employee. That would be terrible as part of anyone’s eulogy, and the thought of that having anything to do with my character is nauseating.

What would I want to be said at my funeral? I think everyone must ask himself or herself this question at some point and come to terms with the finiteness of life. I think for me, the answers are starting to be more apparent, and they have nothing to do with materialism.

So here’s to 2024, a step back for the sake of forward movement.

Heritage and Setting Sail

In the mid-1800s, an Irish woman named Mary set sail for America. En-route she contracted ship’s fever, causing her to lose her hair, but she survived the journey and went on to make a living selling homemade items.

In the US she met a mysterious journeyman named Tom Fitzpatrick, whose origins are unknown, and they gave birth to Catherine Fitzpatrick, who grew up to own and run a boarding house, which she rented to mill workers.

Catherine then wed another traveler, John Devlin, an English-born sailor who ran away from home at 14 and traveled to Australia, South America, and South Africa.

These were my ancestors, and as you can see, it is in my DNA to be on the move. It helps to explain why I cannot sit still for long, and why the office quickly feels like a prison with florescent lights and prisoners who happen to have nice health insurance. It is why a noble death involves a fatal maneuver while on the most epic of journeys, not sitting somewhere and rotting.

It is why I begin planning the next journey as the current one ends.

"I Don't Wanna Die"

The fall season is a bit like life in that it’s both beautiful and painfully ephemeral.

It seems like we are allowed a few weeks to appreciate the vibrant foliage before it desiccates and leaves behind a gaunt assemblage of ghostly spindly bare trees.

I reckon we can feel this way about how our bodies age. There’s a grace period where time affords us some beauty after having weathered the storm of our youths, but eventually the destruction can be merciless, especially if we don’t plan for it.

The cold is starting to creep into the bones and I especially feel it in my right collarbone, which has broken twice. It is a harsh reminder that not all things fully heal.

I find myself thinking of ways to make time slow, which requires discomfort. The sameness of days only makes time accelerate.

I’ll fight my own mortality to the end because frankly, I don’t wanna die.

Fall may be brief, but I’m determined to catch the next one.

A Change in Seasons

Fall is not a good season for minimalists.

There’s a jacket for every slight temperature variation and a layer for every social occasion.

There are shoes for the rain, shoes for hiking, shoes for lounging, and shoes for conducting business.

There are lounge pants for the coffee shop, fatigue pants for the bar, technical pants for a walk, and chino pants for the cubicle.

I’m always a great minimalist in summer. It’s too hot for all of these things.

Then fall hits and I find myself in a vanity fair.